Some Hard Facts About the Philippines From the IIPA

Posted on February 26th, 2010. Written by Rico.

While some aspects of the IIPA report recommending that the Philippines be elevated to a “piracy watch list” are ludicrous, other parts paint a deplorable—and true—picture of our country’s legal institutions.

The Need for Reform

The specific report on the Philippines lists many factors contributing our poor record on piracy. But these realities also indicate that our systems are in desperate need of reform. Some highlights:

On our toothless courts. “Cases listed for trial proceed on non-consecutive days with multiple adjournments of several months at a time… During the extended trial period, many problems often arise, including the transfer of prosecutors and judges, eliminating any institutional memory of the case; the use of delay tactics by defendants’ counsel challenging search warrants or seeking further delays due to technicalities; and even the disappearance of key witnesses, the defendants themselves (the Philippine National Police have shown no sustained inclination or interest in searching for defendants), or key evidence needed to properly adjudicate the case.”

On ineffective search warrants. “One of the most problematic aspects of the Philippine court system has been the de facto unavailability of search warrants in copyright cases due to constitutional challenges by defendants’ counsel.” More on that later today.

On the lack of transparency. “IIPA has little information except what has been provided by the government… the IPO of the Philippines reported enforcement statistics for January to June 2009 on its website, including over three billion pesos (about US$65 million) worth of “counterfeit goods and paraphernalia” seized… Unfortunately, some questions are left unanswered by these statistics, including the true value of the seizures given the lack of transparency.”

While it’s easy to disagree with the business-first philosophy of the IIPA, the same isn’t true about the IIPA’s conclusion that “problems in the enforcement system remain, including difficulty in obtaining search warrants in cases of known or suspected piracy activities, and the ease of them being quashed”. That’s because the institutional problems cited by the American organization apply in general.

Some Good News

On the other hand, the IIPA report is indirectly optimistic about the Philippines’ progress on the internet front:

Internet usage in the Philippines continued to explode in 2009. The Philippines was fourth
in the world in growth of broadband connections (12%) between the second and third quarters 2009, according to Point-Topic, adding over 500,000 broadband subscriptions in the year ending October 1, 2009 (growth of 12.32%), to reach a total of almost 1.5 million broadband subscribers. A recent study by Universal McCann noted there were 37 million regular social networking users in the Philippines.

Images: Wikipilipinas, Promdiblogger